Lecture
Foreign psychology has devoted a considerable number of works to the concept of “psychological coping” (coping).
Russian-language psychological journals began publishing articles on this problem in
the late 1990s, drawing on the research of Western scholars.
Before considering the problem of coping,
we believe it is necessary to answer a number of questions: When does the need
for coping arise? What are we coping with?
What is the nature of critical situations?
Overcoming psychological trauma - this is the process of recovery and adaptation after experiencing a difficult event. This process can be complex and take time, but there are various strategies that can help cope with psychological trauma and gradually restore psychological well-being. It is important to understand that each person is unique, and approaches may differ depending on personal characteristics. Here are several strategies:
Support from others: Communicating with friends, family, or loved ones can play an important role in overcoming trauma. Talking about one's experiences, being listened to, and receiving support can help reduce the feeling of loneliness and isolation.
Psychotherapy: Professional help in the form of psychotherapy can be very useful. A therapist can help you process emotions, understand events, and develop coping strategies.
Expressing emotions: Allow yourself to feel and express emotions, even unpleasant ones. Suppressing emotions can hinder the recovery process.
Gradual acceptance of events: The process of accepting traumatic events can take time. Give yourself permission to feel pain, grief, and other emotions.
Self-care: Adequate sleep, healthy nutrition, and physical activity can help strengthen your mental and physical state.
Meditation and relaxation: Meditation techniques, deep breathing, and relaxation can reduce stress and anxiety.
Returning to everyday life: Gradually returning to routine activities can help restore a sense of normality and control.
Gradually overcoming fears: If the traumatic event caused you fear, gradually exploring and coping with it can aid recovery.
Creative activity: Engaging in a hobby, art, writing, or music can be a way to channel emotions and express yourself.
Learning about trauma: Studying information about trauma, its effects, and coping methods can help you understand them and cope with them better.
The coping strategy arises and is activated (or not activated):
a) when the individual is confronted with new demands; b)
when previously learned and habitual forms of responding no longer
work; c) when the subject faces the impossibility of realizing
their plans and intentions, aspirations and values.
F.E. Vasilyuk gives the following definition of a critical situation: “A critical
situation, in the most general sense, should be defined as a situation
of impossibility, i.e. a situation in which the subject is confronted with
the impossibility of realizing the internal necessities of their life
(motives, aspirations, values, etc.)”
Crisis life situations are described by the following
concepts: stress, conflict, frustration
The concept of “coping” derives from the English “cope” – to overcome, and
in content it is closer to the concept of “adaptation”, which until recently was
used more often in domestic psychology.
The prevalence of the concept of “coping” is explained by a number of trends
in contemporary psychology.
First, by domestic psychologists' adoption of the theoretical
concepts of K. Lewin, and above all the concept of “psychological life
space”. In the concept of «psychological life space»
the key place is occupied by the concept of the interrelation between the person and the situation.
The proposition that the situation determines the logic of a person's behaviour
requires clarification. The situation influences the emergence in a person
of a corresponding disposition. Hence an important proposition: there is
a tendency toward a certain congruence between personal dispositions and
situational strategies, leading to the fact that people with certain
types of dispositions will choose certain types of social
situations and certain strategies of behaviour in these situations.
Second, by greater attention among scholars to the idiographic approach in
psychology. The idiographic approach, in explaining human behaviour,
places emphasis not on the parameters of the situation as such, but on the characteristics
of the perception, understanding, and interpretation of that situation (K. Lewin, H. Thomae,
L.I. Antsyferova).
Coping – an individual way of interacting with the situation in
accordance with its own logic, its significance in a person's life, and their
psychological capacities (S.K. Nartova-Bochaver).
The main task of coping is to keep the person in a state
of psychological equilibrium when they find themselves in a situation of uncertainty.
Modes of psychological coping are distinguished: those directed at
solving the problem, or at changing one's own attitudes with regard to the
situation
There exists a large number of classifications, which sometimes
complement one another and sometimes contradict each other. Thus, speaking of purely
cognitive strategies, a distinction is drawn between those who seek information and the
“thick-skinned”, “closed” to it (E. Koplik). K. Parkers draws attention to direct and
psychological suppression and to the repression of frustrating factors.
Billings and R. Moos propose considering three ways
of psychological coping: appraisal of the situation, intervention in the situation,
and avoidance.
A more detailed classification was proposed by H. Weber: 1) real
(behavioural or cognitive) resolution of the problem; 2) seeking social
support; 3) reinterpreting the situation in one's favour; 4) defence and
denial of the problem; 5) evasion and avoidance; 6) compassion toward oneself;
7) lowering self-esteem; 8) emotional expression. This
classification is not exhaustive. Thus C. Carver and M. Scheier identify 14 modes
of psychological coping, and H. Thomae, analysing the life course of several age groups, identified 20 typical reactions
of psychological coping.
The Bern questionnaire “ways of coping with critical
situations” has been published, listing the following thirty strategies:
distraction (B1), altruism (B2), active avoidance (B3), compensation (B4),
constructive activity (B5), focused relaxation (B6),
self-isolation (B7), solidarity (B8), seeking a way out of the
situation (B9), seeking support (B10), switching (C1),
seeing the situation in a negative light (C2), acceptance, stoicism (C3),
ignoring the activity (C4), maintaining self-control (C5), humour,
irony (C6), analysis of the problem (C7), relativisation (C8), religiosity
(C9), rumination (C10), reflection (C11), raising self-esteem
(C12), indignation, self-pity (E1), emotional discharge (E2),
isolation, suppression (E3), optimism (E4), passive cooperation (E5),
submissive resignation, fatalism (E6), self-blame (E7), seeking someone to blame,
rage (E8).
In total the questionnaire proposes evaluating behaviour across 30 possible
options, ways of coping with critical situations. The identified
forms of coping with a crisis are linked to one of three levels: behaviour
(B), cognitive schemas (C), and emotions (E).
The classification of types of psychological coping, as S.K. Nartova-Bochaver
rightly notes, is a matter for the future. She proposes the following
possible bases for classification:
1) Orientation, or the locus of coping (toward the problem or toward the self).
2) The domain of the psyche in which the coping unfolds
(external activity, representations, or feelings).
3) Effectiveness. Whether the strategy produces the desired result or not.
4) The temporal duration of the effect obtained (whether the
situation is resolved radically or requires returning to it).
5) Situations that provoke coping behaviour (crisis or
everyday).
The problem of the effectiveness of psychological coping.
In examining the problem of the effectiveness of psychological coping
with traumatic events, we should first of all dwell on the criteria
of effectiveness.
Several criteria for the effectiveness of coping can be identified.
The situational criterion. The process of coping can be considered complete
when the situation for the subject loses its negative
significance.
The personal criterion. A noticeable decrease occurs in the level
of the personality's neuroticism, expressed in reduced depression, anxiety,
and irritability, and psychosomatic symptoms.
The adaptational criterion. A reliable criterion of the effectiveness
of coping can also be considered a weakening of vulnerability to stress
and an increase in adaptive resources.
The identified criteria of the effectiveness of coping rarely appear in
their pure form: for example, resolving effectiveness at the personal level
“pulls” the other two criteria along with it.
Conditioning by gender-role stereotypes. The female type
of coping with difficulties is predominantly emotional, the male type —
instrumental, through transforming or reinterpreting the external
situation.
Effective strategies: a real transformation of the situation or, at
the very least, its reinterpretation.
Changing the situation is not so much
a remaking of the external world as a change in one's attitude toward that world, which
in turn brings about a change in the situation. A fragment of reality becomes
a situation (here it is better to use the term “event”) only when
it is incorporated by the subject into their life course.
Among the ambiguous strategies are the emotionally expressive
forms of coping. The general principle is stated as follows:
the expression of feelings is a fairly effective way of coping with stress.
Psychologists and educators are taught to pay attention to a person's behaviour in
grief. Thus, affective behaviour is a sign of recovery, while withdrawal is
a worrying sign. There is, however, an exception to this principle. Open
expression of aggression, owing to its antisocial orientation, is not
effective. At the same time, suppressing anger also constitutes
a risk factor, since it disrupts a person's psychological well-being.
A risk factor is the strategy of self-blame
Remember that each recovery process is individual, and it is important to listen to your own needs and reactions. If coping with trauma proves too difficult, it is recommended that you seek help from a licensed psychologist or psychotherapist.
Questions:
1. Basic concepts of crisis psychology: «crisis», «event»,
«critical event», «psychological trauma».
2. Two approaches to describing personal development: age-related
regularities and age-related characteristics (the dynamic principle).
3. The concept of experiencing as the basic unit of a person's inner
life.
1. The concept of psychological coping (coping strategies).
2. The effectiveness of the main coping strategies.
Comments